Rodney Holmes: The Amazing Drumming Chameleon

By Rob Hulsman

Originally published in the November 2005 issue of DRUM!
Magazine

With singles around the kit that would make Billy Cobham blush and
more soul than an old KISS boot, Rodney Holmes is an in-demand drummer
that plays with an impressive combination of fire and feel. But his
talent isn’t all about chops. It’s also about scope. Case in
point: When we caught up with Holmes, he was back flying from a jazzy
European tour with saxophonist Randy Brecker to hook up with his current
group, the jam-based Steve Kimock Band. He may as well have been flying
from the North to South Poles.

“It’s been crazy,” he deadpans, even though the
stylistic chasm that stands between those two acts makes perfect sense
in Holmes’ hands. His adaptability is quietly becoming the stuff
of legend, but he possesses yet another attribute that can’t be
measured in bpms. It’s called humility. “[I practice] as
much as I can,” says Holmes. “Whenever I have a stretch of
time, I go in the basement and work on new things — things that
I’m hearing in my mind. Especially these days. I feel like
I’m changing, I feel like I’m evolving. I feel like a
beginner, I feel like I’m just starting. It’s
incredible.”

Here’s Where He Started

Handling such
shifting dynamics with ease comes from a deep education and commitment
to his craft. Holmes blossomed early — growing up for the most
part in New York City, his playing garnered him a full scholarship to
Long Island University. But it was an opportunity that just didn’t
feel right at the time.

“I’ve always been relatively
shy,” he says, “dealing with different cliques, and social
hierarchies in school. I was always uncomfortable with that, and the
last thing I wanted at that moment was to go back to school. I needed to
just get out in the real world and not deal with that for a while, and
kind of figure out how I fit into everything.”

Day job in
tow, it didn’t take Holmes long to start making himself known in
the very competitive New York scene. He saved enough to buy a
“professional” drum kit and took as many gigs as possible.
But there was one in particular that simultaneously boosted his career
and confidence.

“There used to be a place, the Jazz Cultural Theater in New
York City, and Barry Harris, the great piano player, used to run
it,” he remembers. “It was basically a jam session for
professional musicians and musicians that just played for a hobby.
Sometimes Art Blakey would come in! I mean, anybody could show up, it
was just well known at the time. It was this humble little place and the
people were very friendly. You’d pay three dollars if you were a
musician and sign your name and go up and play. And if you weren’t
a musician you’d pay five dollars and have a drink and
watch.”

Such a scene, brimming with heavy hitters, might intimidate some
players, but even at a tender age of 19 years, Holmes was made to feel
at home, and even began to make an impression. Within six months he had
made enough contacts to quit his day job; his first big break was a
stint with legendary keyboardist Clyde Criner. “It was a very
exciting period,” Holmes remembers. “I played on two of
Clyde’s records. It was my first real professional recording
experience.”

None other than Omar Hakim shared the drumming
duties with Holmes on that recording. While it wasn’t bad company
to keep, Holmes admits that the experience “was intimidating a
little bit, because it was at Skyline studios, which was a pretty well
known studio at the time. And it was with RCA Novus. But again,
everybody — with the exception of the producer,” he laughs,
“was real encouraging and thought it was great. Having guys like
that hearing me play, word got out.”

Like A Wildfire

Following the Criner gig,
Holmes’ career continued to build with high profile gigs with the
Zawinul Syndicate and the Herminators. But fate was about to tap him on
the shoulder and lead him to a whole other level.

It was 1993. Holmes was in Vienna to play a jazz festival with Joe
Zawinul, and Carlos Santana was scheduled to close the show.
“There I was at the restaurant inside the Hilton in Vienna having
breakfast and I saw Carlos walk in,” Holmes recalls. “He
kind of saw me, and I waved at him and he came over to the table and sat
down. We started talking about music. He loves Wayne Shorter and Weather
Report and is a big John Coltrane fan, and he said he liked my playing.
I said, ’Hey man, if you ever want to get together and play some
time let me know’ — you know, not seriously thinking he
would ever want to do that. So that night was the concert, and he and
some of the other members of the band watched the Zawinul Syndicate show
from the side of the stage. Then a few weeks later I got this call from
his management saying, ’Hey, Carlos wants you to come and
play.’”

In no time, Santana’s management flew Holmes out to California
and rehearsals began. The guitarist must have liked what he heard,
because the next thing he knew, Holmes was touring the country with
Santana on a double bill with Bob Dylan. “It was pretty amazing.
These were huge venues - a lot of sheds. It was my first big rock and
roll tour and I learned a lot.”

Holmes rejoined Santana four years later, in 1997, for what was a
rare moment of mega-success for any musician. The band recorded the song
“Smooth,” penned by Rob Thomas, and had a certified smash
hit on their hands, which featured a full-scale big production video,
complete with closed sets and scantily-clad dancers. “Yeah, that
was huge,” laughs Holmes. “It was the hottest time of the
year, like the dog days of summer. I think it was in August, and they
had all these dancers, and extras, and all of the cameras and, man - it
was pretty crazy. It was actually filmed in Harlem around 114th street.
They blocked off three blocks and they had a huge trailer. It was almost
like a movie set.”

The Next Step

Although playing with Santana
garnered Holmes a higher level of respect within the industry and
multiple Grammy Awards, his work with the Steve Kimock Band seems to
provide a deeper level of expression. “It’s completely
different,” he enthuses. “In this situation, I’m more
of a part of what’s going on musically. Steve’s a completely
different kind of player and he’s much more of an interactive
player. And even though we have compositions, there’s still room
for interpretation every night. So every night is slightly different
from the previous night, and I just feel I have more of a voice
musically in terms of how I approach the music. With Santana, you know,
he’s been around for so long and there are certain things that are
kind of set in stone. Steve reacts more to what’s happening around
him, he reacts more to how the band is interpreting the music. The way
he phrases, it’s just a completely different thing.”

But his new creative opportunities don’t stop at the edge of
the drum riser. SKB has also enabled Holmes to explore songwriting like
never before. On SKB’s new CD, Eudemonic, Holmes penned two of the
tunes himself, and co-wrote another pair with Kimmock. The two kindred
musical spirits approach songwriting in an organic way, letting the
situation remain fluid for maximum creativity.

“It’s
different every time. Sometimes Steve will have an idea for a tune and
bring it in and we’ll try to get it up and running, make
adjustments here and there. Sometimes I’ll bring in a tune
that’s finished, and it’s the same deal, making adjustments
here and there, finding ways to make it work with the band. Sometimes
we’ll write tunes together, like, he’ll bring in a tune and
say, “I need a B and a C section.” I’ll get on the
keyboards and work out ideas. It’s pretty flexible.”

Their partnership pays dividends on Eudemonic. The album is entirely
instrumental, moving effortlessly from mellow, jazzy interludes to
full-on guitar rock frenzies. At once jaw-dropping and toe-tapping,
Holmes’ playing is a marvel of chops and restraint. But while
there is so much to savor in his drumming, we couldn’t help but
marvel at his deft maneuvering of odd time signatures. How does he make
them feel so smooth?

“When I first approach playing odd
meters, just in order to figure out what’s going on, I do what
everyone else does,” he advises. “I find ways to divide it
up, usually in groups of two or three in one way or another. After that
I really try to hone in on the phrase of what’s happening as far
as the music is concerned — if there’s a bass line, melody,
or something that’s a definitive phrase. That’s when I try
to stretch it out and make phrases longer, instead of playing it in
shorter groupings. I believe the benefit in doing that is that it rounds
out what you play. It keeps me from playing things in little square
boxes. It doesn’t sound like math. Once I have a handle on the
pattern, then I can play things over the bar.”

Such mastery
of time and placement was not a quick or easy process. It took years of
dedication and a particular concentration on the rudiments before
Holmes’ hands were able to flow and swing the way they do. Such
facility came as a result of culture shock, as much as anything else.
“When I was a teenager, we moved from New York to southern
Georgia. They didn’t have a regular stage band at the high school
when I was there; all they had was marching band. So I really spent time
dealing with drum corp-type drumming, really concentrating on the
rudiments and writing and reading drum cadences. I focused very much on
my hands and being able to play singles at a certain tempo, or
sixteenth-note triplets — you know, some of those drum cadences
can be pretty involved.”

Consummate Technician

Holmes put the skills he
learned on the field together his wealth of real-life experiences, and
applied them to the music that inspired him. “Later on, hearing
drummers on records like Tony Williams or Billy Cobham, I’d try to
get things to sound a certain way. I worked on different ways of getting
shapes and colors around the kit. In order to get the certain sounds I
wanted, I needed to have some degree of dexterity in order to get around
the kit. So I worked on different ways of pulling the sounds out of the
drum, using singles and doubles and alternating between the feet and the
hands.”

In his pursuit of dexterity, Holmes takes a very
serious and no-nonsense approach, banging out rudiments with strict
attention to physical detail. “As far as rudiments are concerned,
I’ll sit down on the pad and really examine what I’m doing.
I’ll make sure my hands are doing what they are supposed to do, my
arms are doing what they are supposed to do, that I’m not wasting
any motion and there isn’t any superfluous movement going on. I
try to be economical with how I’m using my body. And then when I
sit down at the kit, I try to pay attention to how I’m striking
the drum, how I’m getting around the kit.”

Let’s not mince words. When Holmes gets around the kit, jaws
drop. To achieve such spontaneity and fluidity, Holmes’ practice
routine features a mix of mechanics and goals, realized through an
ever-changing approach. “I think the only thing that’s
consistent when I sit down at the drums is that I pay attention to how
I’m moving,” he says. “I’ll spend a certain
amount of time working on that. After that, I’ll start working on
things that I feel I’m deficient with. It’s easy to sit down
and play things you already know, but the hard part is sounding bad
— working on things that you need to work on. That’s hard to
do. So I try to make sure everything is still working and make sure
I’m doing things correctly. Then I take time to try to fix what I
believe is wrong, or work on things I’d like to be able to do -
things that I don’t do as well as I feel like I should.”

Studio Chops

Holmes has had the chance to wear yet
another new hat, as he honed production skills while working on his solo
album, Twelve Months Of October. Apparently, the studio bug has bitten.
“I really got into production and learning more about sound
designing and recording other instruments when I was finishing my own
record. I’ve learned a lot in the last year just from having to do
it and get things done. But now I’ve realized that I really like
shaping things sonically and coming up with production ideas.”

Holmes doesn’t mean to suggest that the process was a piece of
cake. “The record was hard to finish, being out on the road and
then coming home and doing bits and pieces here and there, but
it’s finally done,” he says. “I’ve been working
on it a long time. Originally, a few years ago, it was supposed to have
been a quartet record, and it just didn’t really work out. The
studio where I was at and the guys that I had - musically they’re
great guys - but I didn’t have the right people for the music I
was trying to put together. So I basically grabbed my tapes and started
from scratch, and wrote all new music and changed the direction and sort
of went with what I was being influenced by at the time. At the time [I
was really listening to] Massive Attack, the Prodigy, DJ Goldie, and DJ
Shadow.”

Such techno acts may seem like a stretch
taste-wise for the man who makes a living touring with jazz and rock
groups, but Holmes doesn’t see it that way. Raised in a musical
house, his pallet is wide and open. “It’s funny, because I
never thought of it as listening to it as different types of music. To
me there was always an underlying common thread that ran through all of
these different dialects of music. And when I talk to other people
— and understandably so — they see it as listening to
different kinds of music. But because of how I grew up listening to
records in the house, they all seem related to me. My father loved music
and played a little bit. My sister studied violin and sang — she
went to Juilliard, actually. And my brother loved music, and there was
rocking music in the house, but I’m the only crazy person
that’s actually playing music for a living [laughs]. Anything that
I liked, anything that appealed to me, I checked it out.”

This diversity of taste has helped Holmes relate to the wide range of
fans who show up at SKB shows. “There’s no question that
there are some Grateful Dead fans that come to the show,” he says.
“It’s definitely a hippie-oriented audience. I think the
core of it is, but the past two or three years it’s been expanding
to people who have never seen the Grateful Dead. I’ve never seen
the Grateful Dead. I didn’t know anything about the Grateful Dead
until [Steve and I] started playing together. I’m excited about
new fans, because I think the music transcends what a Grateful Dead
audience would expect.”

In short, those fans can expect
musical fireworks. Kimock’s slinky, emotive guitar is the perfect
foil for a drummer of Holmes’ wide musical berth. Like lightning
around the kit, and grease under a groove, Rodney Holmes is a musician
to check out.

Guitarist's View: Steve Kimock On Holmes

By Robert L. Doerschuk

Originally Published In DRUM! Magazine's November 2005

It started off five years ago as a bi-coastal relationship: Steve
Kimock emerged from San Francisco’s jam scene, his playing rich
with echoes of Jerry Garcia, his discography a haze of collaborations
with survivors of Jefferson Starship, the Dead, and Quicksilver
Messenger Service. And Rodney Holmes was all New York, busy and intense,
his chops and feel forged in the jazz-funk furnace through dates with
the Brecker Brothers, Joe Zawinul, and Wayne Shorter.

Then there was the commute: Separated by the entire continental U.S.,
the guys faced some unique logistical hurdles. Or, as Kimock puts it,
“Getting together was a huge pain in the ass. You need plane
tickets and rental cars and hotel rooms and per diems for the band and
you feed this guy and that guy and you rent some gear …”

There was only one way to deal with it. “So,” the
guitarist explains, “I moved to Pennsylvania, and it was like,
’Okay, now we can rehearse.’”

Hey, if you’re a dedicated bandleader, you do what you can to
make it all work, especially when you’ve found the right drummer.
“When you reach a certain level it’s understood that
everybody you meet can play,” Kimock says. “At that point,
when you’re putting your band together, it becomes a matter of the
person’s professionalism or how they work with other people. With
Rodney, I had all of that plus somebody who had an amazing command of
the instrument in every way.”

Take, for example, the acid test: drum solos. No one is more
skeptical about drummers going bonkers for ten unaccompanied minutes
than other musicians. Yet Holmes proved the exception to that rule
— a drummer whose solos were as fascinating as his grooves. Kimock
goes even further: Those solos, he insists, were one of the highlights
of the shows they played together.

“I don’t know if anybody really wants to listen to
’In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’ again,” he groans.
“Ensemble drumming is much more interesting, where you get
different styles going and there’s interplay between musicians.
But Rodney’s solos have an ensemble feel. He’ll set up a
little pattern and then build other patterns around them. Pretty soon
he’ll have quite a few things going at the same time, all kinds of
blazing stuff, but the original figure is still there too. Rodney does a
lot of soloing with us, and through it all I’ll just sit on my
stool and just beam at him because I’m so happy. He’s that
good.”

Even so, working with him on their new album, Eudemonic, wasn’t
necessarily all harmony and light, as both discovered when they agreed
to work as co-producers. “For the purposes of analogy,”
Kimock offers, “I’ll quote Ali Akbar Khan, who describes
melody and rhythm as the flesh and bones of music. Rodney and I kept
going back and forth between those two things in the control room. As we
were playing back I’d reach over and turn up the guitar, trying to
put more meat on the bones. Then he’d reach over, turn the guitar
down, and turn the drums up. And I’d reach over and turn the drums
down. More specifically, I’d push toward more timbre and tone
color and variety of intonation. And in the same passage Rodney would
push back toward the rhythm.”

The moral? “Well, I
think Rodney came to understand that you’ve got to have the flesh
or all you’re left with is this hard framework. I realized that
you’ve got to have the bones too, or the whole thing just falls
over. And we both learned that guitar players and drummers probably
shouldn’t mix records together.”

Groove Analysis: Rodney Holmes Rips It Up On Eudemonic

Steve Kimock’s Eudemonic is an eclectic collection of musical
styles, at times touching on country, R&B, Afro-Cuban, and jazz
fusion, with more than a little hippie Jam Band rock thrown into the
mix. Rodney Holmes is no slammer, but rather dances around the phrases,
coloring them with lots of little embellishments, much like we’d
expect from someone with his extensive background playing jazz. Here are
a couple of his highlights from Eudemonic.

“Elmer’s Revenge” This 4/4
groove feels like an odd meter largely because of the clever bass
phrasing of Alphonso Johnson’s bass line. The sixteen counts in
each measure are divided into groups of 3-2-3-2-3-3, which sound like
two groups of 5 and one of 6. I’ve indicated this bass phrasing in
the first line so you can more easily see how Holmes follows the
phrasing with his groove.